Zell  Miller Speech
    On Abraham Lincoln's birthday, Senator Zell Miller of Georgia rose to
deliver a brilliant speech on the floor of the United States Senate in
support of the Constitution Restoration Act.  His words were so powerful
and so true that we have included excerpts below.
" The Old Testament prophet Amos was a sheep herder who lived back in the
Judean hills, away from the larger cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
Compared to the intellectual urbanites like Isaiah and Jeremiah, he was
just an unsophicated country hick.  But Amos had a unique grasp of
political and social issues and his poetic literary skill was among the
best of all the prophets. That familiar quote of Martin Luther King, Jr.
about "Justice will rush down like waters and righteousness like a mighty
stream" are Amos' words.
     Amos... wrote that God demanded moral purity, not rituals and
sacrifices.  This blunt speaking moral conscience of his time warns in
Chapter 8, verse 11 of the Book of Amos, as if he were speaking to us
today.  That "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a
famine in the land.  Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but
of hearing the word of the Lord.  And they shall wander from sea to sea,
and from the north even  the east,  The shall run to and fro to seek the
word of the Lord, and shall not find it."     "A famine in the land"  Has
anyone more accurately describe the situation we face in America today?
"A famine of hearing the words of the Lord."  But some will say, Amos was
just an Old Testament prophet - a minor one at that - who lived 700 years
before Christ.  That is true, so how about one of the most influential
historians of modern times.  Arnold Toynbee, who wrote the acclaimed 12
volume A Study of History once declared, "Of the 22 civilizations that
appeared in history, 19 of them collapsed when they reached the moral
state America is in today."  Toynbee died in l975, before seeing the
worst that was yet to come.  Yes, Arnold Toynbee saw the famine.  The
"famine of hearing the words of the Lord".  Whether it is removing a
display of the Ten Commandments from a Courthouse or the Nativity Scene
from a city square.  Whether it is eliminating prayer in schools or
eliminating "under God" in the pledge of allegiance.  Whether it making a
mockery of the institution of marriage between a man and a woman or yes,
telecasting around the world made-in-the USA filth masquerading a
entertainment.
     The desire and will of the Congress to meaningful do anything about
any of these so-called social issues is nonexistent and embarrassingly
disgraceful.  The American people are waiting and growing impatient with
us.  They want something done...
     Everyone today seems to think that the US Constitution expressively
provides for separation of church and state.  Ask any ten people if
that's not so, and I'll bet you most of them will say, "Well sure.  and
some will point out, "It's in the first amendment".  Wrong!  Read it
again.  It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Where is the word
"separate", Where are the words "church or state"  They are not there.
Never has been.  Never intended to be.  Read the Congressional Records
during that four month period in 1789 when the amendment was being framed
in Congress.  Clearly their intent was to prohibit a single denomination
in exclusion of all others, whether it was Anglican or Catholic or some
other.
    It was Alexander Hamilton who pointed out that "judges should be
bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and
point out there duty".  Bound down.  That is exactly what is needed to be
done.  There was not a single precedent cited when school prayer was
struck down in 1962.  These judges who legislate instead of adjucate, do
it without being responsible to one single solitary voter for their
actions.  Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a
brilliant young physician from Pennsylvania named Benjamin Rush.  When
Rush was elected to that First Constitutional Congress, his close friend,
Benjamin Franklin told him "We need you.  We have a great task before us,
assigned to us by  Providence".  Today, 228 years later there is still a
great task before us assigned to us by Providence.  Our Founding Fathers
did not shirk their duty and we can do no less.
   So, if I am asked why with all the pressing problems this nation faces
today -- why am I pushing these social issues and taking the Senate's
valuable time?  I will answer:  Because, it is the  highest importance.
Yes, their is a deficit to be concerned about in this country, a deficit
of decency.
     So, as the sand empties through the hourglass at warp speed - and
with my time running out in the Senate and on this earth, I feel
compelled to speak out.  For I truly believe that at times like these,
silence is not golden, it is yellow."